[ In short ]
Lunarion Labs is a software lab with its business address at 1178 Broadway in Manhattan. We help New York companies rescue stuck software, build SaaS products and business tools, ship iOS and Android apps, add AI agents and automation, and get found on Google and AI search. We work remotely on Eastern Time, one senior lead owns each project from first call to launch, and every engagement starts with a fixed-price audit that ends with a written diagnosis and a detailed, prioritized quote.
01The New York market
New York runs on software, even in the businesses that do not call themselves tech companies. Banks, asset managers and insurers around Wall Street and Midtown depend on internal tools that move money and data every minute. Publishers, broadcasters and agencies run content operations on custom platforms. Landlords and brokers manage leases, tenants and listings through portals. Hospitals and clinics handle scheduling and patient records. Fashion and consumer brands sell direct online. In every one of these sectors, software is no longer a side project: it is the way the company earns and keeps revenue.
The city also has one of the deepest tech ecosystems in the country. The Flatiron District and the old Silicon Alley label, Brooklyn's startup neighborhoods, Cornell Tech on Roosevelt Island, Columbia and NYU all feed a steady flow of founders and engineers. That density cuts both ways. There are many good engineers, but they are expensive and hard to keep, and a large share of products here were first built by agencies, freelancers or offshore teams to hit a launch date, a funding round or a client deadline.
What that means in practice: a lot of New York software is valuable and fragile at the same time. It works, customers pay for it, and nobody on the current team fully understands how it is put together. Access sits in a former vendor's accounts, deployments depend on one person, and security reviews from banks, landlords or enterprise buyers keep raising the same questions. The need is less about brand new ideas and more about a senior person who takes ownership, secures what exists and keeps it moving.
Sectors we know well in New York
- Finance and fintech
- Media and publishing
- Real estate and proptech
- Healthcare
- E-commerce and DTC brands
02Software challenges we see in New York
Products built by a vendor who moved on
Many New York startups and mid-size firms paid an agency to build their first platform, then lost contact when the contract ended. The domain, the cloud account or the app store listing may still be registered to the agency. Before any new feature can ship, someone has to recover every access, move it into the company's name and understand what the code actually does.
Security questionnaires from demanding buyers
Selling software to banks, insurers, hospitals or large landlords in New York means answering long security reviews. Shared admin logins, API keys committed to the repository, missing backups and outdated packages are common findings. These issues block deals more often than missing features, and they can be fixed methodically once someone takes inventory of what is exposed.
Content and commerce stacks under pressure
Media groups and DTC brands live on publishing tools, storefronts and subscription systems connected by plugins and scripts. A traffic spike from a news cycle, a press feature or a sale can expose every weak link at once: slow pages, failed payments, broken newsletter syncs. The fix is usually targeted work on the bottlenecks, not a new platform.
Back offices held together by spreadsheets
Property managers, clinics and professional services firms often run key processes on spreadsheets, shared inboxes and manual copy-paste between tools. It works until volume grows or the person who built the spreadsheet leaves. Replacing that with a focused internal tool or a set of automations saves real hours and removes errors that reach clients.
03What we do for New York companies
Software rescue
For a New York fintech, proptech or media platform left behind by its builders, we start by reading the code, the database and the hosting, then recover every access into your company's name. We stop the urgent failures, rotate exposed keys, set up backups and a staging copy, and only then plan improvements. The product stays live for your customers while we work, and you get a written diagnosis you can share with investors or partners.
SaaS & business software
We build SaaS products and internal software for New York teams: tenant and lease portals for property managers, client dashboards for financial advisers, editorial planning tools for publishers, partner portals for brands. Each comes with roles and permissions, an admin panel, Stripe billing when the product is sold, and integrations with the CRM or accounting tools you already use. Releases land on staging first so your team can test before anything goes live.
Mobile apps
Many New York products need a mobile app that feels as solid as the brand: a booking app for a clinic group, a resident app for a building portfolio, a members app for a media subscription. We build iOS and Android apps with their back end, handle in-app purchases by Apple and Google rules, and manage submission and App Review. Developer accounts are opened or moved into your company's name.
AI & agents
We add AI agents where they remove real work: answering resident or customer questions from your own documentation, drafting first versions of reports, sorting inbound requests, extracting data from contracts and statements. For finance, healthcare and media teams in New York, the important part is control. We set clear access rules, keep logs, keep sensitive data out of tools it should not reach, and keep the API keys in your accounts.
Automation
We connect the tools New York teams already pay for: CRM, accounting, email, e-signature, payment and property management systems. Typical work includes syncing new deals into invoicing, routing maintenance requests to the right vendor, pushing subscription events into the finance stack and sending daily summaries to managers. When a no-code automation has grown too fragile, we rebuild it as reliable code with error alerts.
SEO & AI visibility
Competition for search in New York is intense, whether you sell software, services or products. We fix the technical side first (speed, indexing, structured data, broken pages), then build pages that answer the questions your buyers actually type, including local intent. We also work on visibility in AI search tools, so assistants describe your company accurately and cite your pages when people ask for recommendations.
04Typical situations in New York
- A fintech MVP was built by an agency that no longer answers, and production access is still in the agency's name. We recover the accounts in the right order, document the system and get releases moving again.
- A property management portal breaks every time a dependency is updated, so nobody dares to touch it. We add tests around the critical flows, update packages step by step and make deployments repeatable.
- A media or e-commerce team wants AI agents for support and content operations without sending data to random tools. We build agents on your own documentation, with access rules and logs, inside accounts you own.
- An enterprise buyer sends a long security questionnaire and the deal stalls on the answers. We audit the platform, fix the gaps that matter and help your team answer with facts instead of guesses.
05How a project runs, step by step
- Fixed-price audit. We review the code, access, hosting and contracts, then deliver a written diagnosis with a prioritized, costed plan.
- Secure. Every account and the repository are moved into your company's name, backups are in place and exposed secrets are rotated.
- Fix and build. We stabilize what is fragile, refactor step by step and build what is missing, on a copy of your product.
- Launch and hand over. We publish only after checking, then hand over documentation any senior engineer can pick up.
06How we work with New York teams
Our business address is 1178 Broadway in Manhattan and our working day runs on Eastern Time, so for New York teams there is no time zone gap at all. We work remotely, which keeps the focus on the work: short calls when decisions are needed, written updates the rest of the time, and progress you can follow in the Lunarion client app. We work in English and French, which helps companies with teams or investors in France.
One senior lead owns your project from the first call to launch, so you never re-explain context to a new person. We can sign an NDA before looking at anything. We work on a copy or staging environment and only publish after checking, so your product stays live. At handover, the code, domains, repositories, cloud, app store and payment accounts are all in your company's name and documented.
07What shapes the scope of a New York project
We do not publish prices: every project is different, and the audit is what sets the quote. These are the factors that weigh most:
- The size and condition of the existing codebase, database and hosting setup
- How many accounts and accesses have to be recovered from former vendors
- Security and compliance expectations from your buyers, partners or regulators
- The number of integrations with CRM, payment, accounting or property systems
- Whether the work is a rescue of something live, a new build, or both
08Frequently asked questions
Do you work with New York companies on Eastern Time?
Yes. Our business address is on Broadway in Manhattan and we work on Eastern Time, so calls, releases and urgent fixes follow your working day. We work remotely, which means we do not visit offices, but you always have a direct line to the senior lead who owns your project.
How does a project start?
Every project starts with a fixed-price audit. We review the code, accesses, hosting and contracts, then deliver a written diagnosis and a detailed, prioritized quote. You decide what to do next with a clear picture of the risks, and the diagnosis is useful even if you choose another team.
Who owns the code and the accounts?
Your company does. The code, domains, repositories, cloud, app store and payment accounts are moved into your company's name and documented at handover. We do not keep anything hostage, and you can bring in another team at any time.
Can you answer a bank's or enterprise client's security review for our product?
We can audit your platform against the kind of questions those reviews ask, fix what is missing, such as access control, secrets handling, backups and outdated packages, and give your team accurate technical answers. The final answers and commitments remain yours, based on what is actually in place.
Do we have to rewrite our platform?
Rarely. Most New York platforms we see have years of business rules built in. We refactor step by step rather than doing a big-bang rewrite, so the product keeps serving customers while weak parts are replaced or modernized.
Can you sign an NDA before seeing our project?
Yes. We can sign an NDA before you share any code, documents or access. That is common for financial, healthcare and media projects, and it does not slow down the audit.
09Other cities we work with
[ Lunarion audit ]
Need an outside view?
The Lunarion audit takes stock of your project: a written diagnosis, priorities and costs.